From equal rights to parental rights, Maine lawmakers consider constitutional amendments

Yahoo

05-03-2025

Sen. Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Cumberland) rallies outside the State House to voice her support for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Maine Constitution on March 4, 2025. (Photo by Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
Democratic lawmakers and members of the public turned out en masse on Tuesday to testify in favor of the Legislature passing a bill to put an Equal Rights Amendment out to voters, arguing that attempts to strip discrimination protections at the federal level make the codification ever more essential.
The late state Rep. Lois Galgay Reckitt pressed for the Equal Rights Amendment in the Maine Constitution for five decades, with the last attempt failing to pass in 2023 during her final term in the Maine Legislature. LD 260, proposed by Rep. Holly Sargent (D-York) and more than 90 Democratic and independent co-sponsors, seeks to continue her dogged efforts.
Echoing prominent opposition to the federal Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, the one opponent who turned out on Tuesday argued the amendment was a threat to women's rights because of the protections it would afford against discrimination based on gender identity, which is already protected under state law.
During the same hearing in the Judiciary Committee, legislators also heard proposed constitutional amendments related to parental rights, which received little to no testimony from the public but a surplus of questions from lawmakers about possible implications.
When asked whether the ERA proposal would exacerbate President Donald Trump's threat to withhold federal funding to Maine over allegations that the state is defying his executive order barring transgender athletes from competing on women's sports teams consistent with their gender identity, Sargent said, 'It doesn't,' before adding, 'Well, other than basically saying that all people, including trans people, deserve basic human rights under this law.'
Referring to when Maine ratified the federal Equal Rights Amendment in 1974, Sargent said Democrats and Republicans came together to put principle and people over party.
'That is what we all need to do,' Sargent said. 'If they could do it 50 years ago, we can do it now.'
The federal ERA has not been adopted because it wasn't ratified by three-quarters of states by the congressional deadline, attributed mainly to an opposition campaign headed by Phyllis Schlafly, who framed it as a threat to traditional family roles and women's rights.
Although the country has now technically reached that threshold, lapsed deadlines and some rescinded approval has meant the U.S. Constitution still doesn't have such an amendment — and neither does Maine's.
Constitutional amendments in Maine have high bars for passage. This bill will have to secure the support of two-thirds of the Legislature and would then be sent to the voters, who would ultimately decide. Voters would be asked the following on the ballot:
'Do you favor amending the Constitution of Maine to prohibit the denial or abridgment by the State or any political subdivision of the State of equal rights based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, physical or mental disability, ancestry or national origin of an individual?'
Tuesday was the fifth time former Sen. Eloise Vitelli testified in support of an Equal Rights Amendment, though the first was as a regular voter when she arrived in Maine shortly after the National ERA passed.
'As we've all seen, progress does not happen in a straight line,' Vitelli said. 'And it is not guaranteed. Laws can and do change.'
Others supportive of enshrining the protections of the Maine Human Rights Act into the state Constitution similarly argued that laws passed by the Legislature can be more easily overturned depending on who wins elections.
Referencing efforts at the federal level to roll back discrimination protections, Vitelli said, 'It is time now to lay a strong foundation for our future to protect the human rights of all of us who live here.'
Student Brennan Edwards said passing an Equal Rights Amendment is not just a legal necessity but a moral imperative.
Edwards identified himself as a gay minor living in the district represented by Rep. Laurel Libby, who the Maine House of Representatives voted to censure last week for posting on her legislative Facebook page photographs and personal details about a transgender high school athlete. Days after the post, Trump threatened to withhold funding from Maine.
'The rising tide of intolerance is not just unsettling, it is terrifying,' Edwards said. 'I see it in my school, in my community and across the country. It is emboldened by rhetoric that seeks to raise, diminish, or dehumanize people like me.'
Gender discrimination is not a historical artifact. The impact of gender-based discrimination and the lack of equal rights is with us today.
– Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows
Progress toward gender equality has been made in Maine and throughout the nation's history, said Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. Bellows highlighted some of the ways women's equal status was left out of the early drafts of the constitution, for example, pointing to the section on the secretary's role, which was written entirely with he/him pronouns.
'Our founding statesmen could not even conceive of someone like me holding this office,' said Bellows, Maine's first female Secretary of State. However, she added, 'Gender discrimination is not a historical artifact. The impact of gender-based discrimination and the lack of equal rights is with us today.'
Only one person testified against the proposal on Tuesday, Lisa Lane on behalf of New England Women's Solidarity, a group founded in 2023 to oppose what they perceive as threats to women's rights from transgender protections.
'We believe that this bill would result in a regression of women's rights,' Lane said, 'Including gender expression and gender identity as protected categories in the Maine Constitution would undermine women's ability to defend our rights as a sex-based class.'
While speaking neither for nor against the bill, Kristen Chapman, a resident of Sumner, raised concern about the word 'perceived' in the proposed amendment, arguing it is too ambiguous and could lead to unintended consequences.
In contrast to the ERA bill, no one testified for nor against a proposed amendment from Rep. Jennifer Poirier (R-Skowhegan) to 'provide for parental rights.' However, legislators on the Judiciary Committee had a litany of questions about the possible far reaching consequences of the measure.
LD 492, which also has nine Republican co-sponsors, proposed an amendment that reads, 'The natural, inherent and unalienable rights of minor children are held by their parents or guardians until the age of majority or a grant of emancipation,' and that the 'state, its political subdivisions and all governmental entities may not infringe on the authority of parents to direct the upbringing, education and care for the physical, mental and spiritual health of their children, absent abuse or neglect by the parent or guardian or criminal acts by the minor.'
Poirier told the committee her bill is 'common sense law that affirms parental rights as fundamental.' Committee members seemed to disagree, as they asked a multitude of questions to clarify where the amendment would draw the line between parental and state rights, particularly when it comes to physical and sexual abuse.
Committee co-chair Sen. Anne Carney (D-Cumberland), who early in her career worked in a group home for children who faced such abuse by their parents, said those parents would have said 'when they were physically abusing their kids, they were just disciplining them and when they were sexually abusing their kids, they were just loving them. And that's what I think about when I look at this.'
Carney said, to her, this amendment seemed to indicate the state doesn't get to draw that line.
Rep. Dylan Pugh (D-Portland) further questioned how such a line would be drawn when abuse isn't obvious per se, such as if a parent isolates a child so they are less likely to be able to expose abuse or have access to resources to initiate emancipation proceedings.
'My feeling on that is that we have laws in place now and a system in place to investigate those sorts of activities, I guess you could call them, and I don't see this as changing that,' Poirier reiterated.
Another line of questioning centered on how the amendment would impact children's rights.
'I think all people have rights regardless of age, but I think when you're talking about people under 18, it's up to the parents to guide that child,' Poirier said.
Rep. Dani O'Halloran (D-Brewer) asked, 'Where does the guiding stop if the child wants something totally different than what the parents want?' For example, O'Halloran pointed to some religions that don't believe in providing some lifesaving treatments and asked how such a case would be handled.
When Poirier said she felt the line of questioning was headed down a rabbit hole, O'Halloran pushed back. 'When I look at this,' she said of Poirer's bill, 'it doesn't really say anything about guiding. It seems like it's pretty concrete.'
Poirier said it is her firm belief that the majority of parents have good intentions and do a good job raising their kids.
'I don't think it should be up to the state to place guardrails on what a parent can and cannot do,' she said.
Continuing the push for greater parental authority over their children, Rep. Reagan Paul (R-Winterport) proposed LD 410, titled, 'An Act to Require Parental Consent to Withhold Life-sustaining Measures for a Minor or to Comply with a Do-not-resuscitate Order for a Minor.'
'There is a Nazi-style, eugenics-driven genocide of children happening in our nation's hospitals, which blatantly disregards parental rights,' Paul said.
Paul's bill is based on a model known as Simon's Law, which a couple in Missouri is advocating for passage across the country after the death of their child, Simon, who had Trisomy 18 and congenital heart defects. Simon's parents testified in Maine on Tuesday that a 'do-not-resuscitate order' had been placed on Simon without their consent.
Allies of Simon's Law also advocated against the passage of Missouri's Right to Reproductive Freedom initiative, arguing it would allow people to terminate the pregnancy of a potentially disabled fetus and a baby after birth by withholding medical care.
Carney asked Paul, 'Are you or are you not saying that Nazi-style, eugenics-driven genocide of children is happening in our state?'
Paul responded, 'I'm saying the possibility is there.'
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